Prince Kurbsky Andrei Mikhailovich is a well-known Russian politician, commander, writer and translator, the closest associate of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. In 1564, during the Livonian War, he fled from possible disgrace to Poland, where he was accepted into the service of King Sigismund II Augustus. Subsequently fought against Muscovy.
Family tree
Prince Rostislav Smolensky was the grandson of Vladimir Monomakh himself and was the ancestor of two eminent families - Smolensk and Vyazemsky. The first of them had several branches, one of which was the Kurbsky family, who reigned in Yaroslavl from the 13th century. According to legend, this surname came from the main village called Kurby. This inheritance went to Yakov Ivanovich. All that is known about this man is that he died in 1455 on the Arsk field, bravely fighting against the Kazanians. After his death, the inheritance passed into the possession of his brother Semyon, who served with Grand Duke Vasily.
In turn, he had two sons - Dmitry and Fedor, who were in the servicefrom Prince Ivan III. The last of them was the Nizhny Novgorod governor. His sons were brave warriors, but only one Mikhail, who bore the nickname Karamysh, had children. Together with his brother Roman, he died in 1506 in the battles near Kazan. Semyon Fedorovich also fought against Kazanians and Lithuanians. He was a boyar under Vasily III and strongly condemned the decision of the prince to tonsure his wife Solomiya as a nun.
One of the sons of Karamysh, Mikhail, was often appointed to various command posts during campaigns. The last in his life was the military campaign of 1545 against Lithuania. After himself, he left two sons - Andrei and Ivan, who subsequently successfully continued the family military traditions. Ivan Mikhailovich was seriously wounded during the capture of Kazan, but did not leave the battlefield and continued to fight. I must say that numerous injuries severely crippled his he alth, and a year later he died.
An interesting fact is that no matter how many historians write about Ivan IV, they will definitely remember Andrei Mikhailovich - perhaps the most famous representative of his kind and the closest associate of the tsar. Until now, researchers are arguing about who is really Prince Kurbsky: friend or enemy of Ivan the Terrible?
Biography
No information about his childhood years has been preserved, and no one would have been able to accurately determine the date of birth of Andrei Mikhailovich if he himself had not casually mentioned this in one of his works. And he was born in the autumn of 1528. It is not surprising that for the first time Prince Kurbsky, biographywhich was associated with frequent military campaigns, is mentioned in documents in connection with the next campaign of 1549. In the army of Tsar Ivan IV, he had the rank of steward.
He was not yet 21 years old when he took part in the campaign against Kazan. Perhaps Kurbsky managed to immediately become famous for his feats of arms on the battlefields, because a year later the sovereign made him a governor and sent him to Pronsk to protect the southeastern borders of the country. Soon, as a reward either for military merit, or for a promise to arrive at the first call with his detachment of soldiers, Ivan the Terrible granted Andrei Mikhailovich lands located near Moscow.
First victories
It is known that the Kazan Tatars, starting from the reign of Ivan III, quite often raided Russian settlements. And this despite the fact that Kazan was formally dependent on the Moscow princes. In 1552, the Russian army was again called for another battle with the recalcitrant Kazan. Around the same time, the army of the Crimean Khan appeared in the south of the state. The enemy army came close to Tula and laid siege to it. Tsar Ivan the Terrible decided to stay with the main forces near Kolomna, and send a 15,000-strong army commanded by Shchenyatev and Andrei Kurbsky to the rescue of the besieged city.
Russian troops caught the khan by surprise with their unexpected appearance, so he had to retreat. However, a significant detachment of Crimeans still remained near Tula, mercilessly robbing the surroundings of the city, not suspecting that the main troops of the khan had gone to the steppe. HereAndrei Mikhailovich decided to attack the enemy, although he had half as many warriors. According to the surviving documents, this battle lasted an hour and a half, and Prince Kurbsky emerged victorious from it.
The result of this battle was a great loss of enemy troops: half of the 30,000-strong detachment died during the battle, and the rest were either taken prisoner or drowned while crossing the Shivoron. Kurbsky himself fought on a par with his subordinates, as a result of which he received several wounds. However, a week later he got back into service and even went on a hike. This time his path ran through the Ryazan lands. He was faced with the task of covering the main forces from sudden attacks by the steppes.
Siege of Kazan
In the autumn of 1552, Russian troops approached Kazan. Shchenyatev and Kurbsky were appointed commanders of the Right Hand Regiment. Their detachments were located across the Kazanka River. This area turned out to be undefended, so the regiment suffered heavy losses as a result of the fire opened on them from the city. In addition, the Russian soldiers had to repulse the attacks of the Cheremis, who often came from the rear.
On September 2, the assault on Kazan began, during which Prince Kurbsky with his warriors had to stand on the Elbugin Gates so that the besieged could not escape from the city. Numerous attempts by enemy troops to break through the protected area were largely repelled. Only a small part of the enemy soldiers managed to escape from the fortress. Andrei Mikhailovich with his soldiers rushed in pursuit. He bravelyfought, and only a severe wound finally forced him to leave the battlefield.
Royal Advisor
Two years later, Kurbsky again went to the Kazan lands, this time to pacify the rebels. I must say, the campaign turned out to be very difficult, since the troops had to make their way along the impassability and fight in a wooded area, but the prince coped with the task, after which he returned to the capital with a victory. It was for this feat of arms that Ivan the Terrible made him a boyar.
At this time, Prince Kurbsky is one of the closest people to Tsar Ivan IV. Gradually, he became close to Adashev and Sylvester, representatives of the reformers' party, and also became one of the sovereign's advisers, entering the Chosen Rada. In 1556, he took part in a new military campaign against the Cheremis and again returned from the campaign as a winner. First, he was appointed governor in the regiment of the Left Hand, which was stationed in Kaluga, and a little later he took command of the regiment of the Right Hand, located in Kashira.
War with Livonia
It was this circumstance that forced Andrei Mikhailovich to return to combat formation again. First, he was appointed to command Storozhev, and a little later, the Advanced Regiment, with which he took part in the capture of Yuryev and Neuhaus. In the spring of 1559, he returned to Moscow, where they soon decided to send him to serve on the southern border of the state.
The victorious war with Livonia did not last long. When failures began to pour in one after another, the tsar summoned Kurbsky to him and put him in charge of the entire army,fighting in Livonia. I must say that the new commander immediately began to act decisively. Without waiting for the main forces, he was the first to attack the enemy detachment, located near Weisenstein, and won a landslide victory.
Without thinking twice, Prince Kurbsky makes a new decision - to fight the enemy troops, which were personally led by the master of the famous Livonian Order himself. Russian detachments bypassed the enemy from the rear and, despite the night time, attacked him. Soon the skirmish with the Livonians turned into hand-to-hand combat. And here the victory was for Kurbsky. After a ten-day respite, the Russian troops moved on.
Having reached Fellin, the prince ordered to burn its suburbs, and then to begin the siege of the city. In this battle, the Land Marshal of the Order F. Schall von Bell was captured, who was hurrying to help the besieged. He was immediately sent to Moscow with a cover letter from Kurbsky. In it, Andrei Mikhailovich asked not to kill the Land Marshal, as he considered him an intelligent, courageous and courageous person. Such a message suggests that the Russian prince was a noble warrior who not only knew how to fight well, but also treated worthy opponents with great respect. However, despite this, Ivan the Terrible still executed the Livonian. Yes, this is not surprising, since at about the same time the government of Adashev and Sylvester was eliminated, and the advisers themselves, their associates and friends were executed.
Defeat
Andrey Mikhailovich took the castle of Fellin forthree weeks, after which he went to Vitebsk, and then to Nevel. Here luck turned against him, and he was defeated. However, the royal correspondence with Prince Kurbsky testifies that Ivan IV was not going to accuse him of treason. The king was not angry with him for an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Helmet. The fact is that if this event was given great importance, then this would have been mentioned in one of the letters.
Nevertheless, it was then that the prince first thought about what would happen to him when the king found out about the failures that had befallen him. Knowing well the ruler’s tough temper, he perfectly understood: if he defeats enemies, nothing threatens him, but in case of defeat, he can quickly fall out of favor and end up on the block. Although, in truth, apart from compassion for the disgraced, he had nothing to blame.
Judging by the fact that after the defeat at Nevel, Ivan IV appointed Andrei Mikhailovich governor in Yuryev, the tsar was not going to punish him. However, Prince Kurbsky fled to Poland from the tsar's wrath, as he felt that sooner or later the sovereign's fury would fall on his head. King Sigismund II Augustus highly appreciated the feats of arms of the prince, and therefore called him to his service somehow, promising him a good reception and a luxurious life.
Escape
Kurbsky increasingly began to think about the offer of the Polish king, until at the end of April 1564 he decided to secretly flee to Wolmar. Along with him went his followers and even servants. Sigismund II received them well, and the prince himselfawarded estates with the right of hereditary property.
When he learned that Prince Kurbsky fled from the tsar's wrath, Ivan the Terrible unleashed all his fury on the relatives of Andrei Mikhailovich who remained here. All of them suffered a hard fate. To justify his cruelty, he accused Kurbsky of treason, violation of the kiss on the cross, as well as the kidnapping of his wife Anastasia and the desire to reign in Yaroslavl himself. Ivan IV was able to prove only the first two facts, while he clearly invented the rest in order to justify his actions in the eyes of the Lithuanian and Polish nobles.
Life in exile
Having entered the service of King Sigismund II, Kurbsky almost immediately began to occupy high military positions. Not even six months had passed since he had already fought against Muscovy. With the Lithuanian troops, he participated in the campaign against Velikiye Luki and defended Volhynia from the Tatars. In 1576, Andrei Mikhailovich commanded a large detachment, which was part of the troops of Grand Duke Stefan Batory, who fought against the Russian army near Polotsk.
In Poland, Kurbsky lived almost all the time in Milyanovichi, near Kovel. He entrusted the management of his lands to trusted persons. In his spare time from military campaigns, he was engaged in scientific research, preferring works on mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and theology, as well as studying Greek and Latin.
It is known that the fugitive Prince Kurbsky and Ivan the Terrible corresponded. The first letter was sent to the Tsar in 1564. It was delivered to Moscow by the faithful servant of Andrei Mikhailovich Vasily Shibanov, whomsubsequently tortured and executed. In his letters, the prince expressed his deep indignation at those unjust persecutions, as well as numerous executions of innocent people who served the sovereign faithfully. In turn, Ivan IV defended the absolute right to pardon or execute any of his subjects at his own discretion.
The correspondence between the two opponents lasted for 15 years and ended in 1579. The letters themselves, the well-known pamphlet en titled "The Story of the Grand Duke of Moscow" and the rest of Kurbsky's works are written in a literate literary language. In addition, they contain very valuable information about the era of the reign of one of the most cruel rulers in the history of Russia.
Already living in Poland, the prince married a second time. In 1571 he married the we althy widow Kozinskaya. However, this marriage did not last long and ended in divorce. For the third time, Kurbsky married a poor woman named Semashko. From this union, the prince had a son and a daughter.
Shortly before his death, the prince took part in another campaign against Moscow led by Stefan Batory. But this time he did not have to fight - having almost reached the border with Russia, he fell seriously ill and was forced to turn back. Andrei Mikhailovich died in 1583. He was buried on the territory of the monastery located near Kovel.
All his life he was an ardent supporter of Orthodoxy. The proud, stern and implacable character of Kurbsky greatly contributed tothe fact that he had many enemies among the Lithuanian and Polish nobility. He constantly quarreled with his neighbors and often seized their lands, and covered the royal envoys with Russian abuse.
Shortly after the death of Andrei Kurbsky, his attorney Prince Konstantin Ostrozhsky also died. From that moment on, the Polish government began to gradually take away possessions from his widow and son, until, finally, Kovel was also taken away. Litigation on this issue lasted for several years. As a result, his son Dmitry managed to return part of the lost lands, after which he converted to Catholicism.
Characteristics of Prince Kurbsky
Opinions about him as a political figure and as a person are often diametrically opposed. Some consider him an inveterate conservative with an extremely narrow and limited outlook, who supported the boyars in everything and opposed the tsarist autocracy. In addition, his flight to Poland is regarded as a kind of prudence associated with the great benefits of life that King Sigismund Augustus promised him. Andrei Kurbsky is even suspected of the insincerity of his judgments, which he set out in numerous works that were entirely aimed at maintaining Orthodoxy.
Many historians tend to think that the prince was still an extremely intelligent and educated person, as well as sincere and honest, always on the side of good and justice. For such character traits, they began to call him "the first Russian dissident." Since the reasons for the disagreement between him and Ivan the Terrible, as well as the legends of Prince Kurbsky themselves, have not been fully studied,the controversy over the identity of this well-known political figure of the time will continue for a long time.
The well-known Polish heraldry and historian Simon Okolsky, who lived in the 17th century, also expressed his opinion on this issue. His characterization of Prince Kurbsky boiled down to the following: he was a truly great man, and not only because he was related to the royal house and held the highest military and government positions, but also because of his valor, since he won several significant victories. In addition, the historian wrote about the prince as a truly happy person. Judge for yourself: he, an exile and runaway boyar, was received with extraordinary honors by the Polish king Sigismund II August.
Until now, the reasons for the flight and betrayal of Prince Kurbsky are of great interest to researchers, since the personality of this person is ambiguous and multifaceted. Another proof that Andrei Mikhailovich had a remarkable mind can be the fact that, being no longer young, he managed to learn Latin, which he did not know at all until that time.
In the first volume of the book called Orbis Poloni, which was published in 1641 in Krakow, the same Simon Okolsky placed the coat of arms of the princes Kurbsky (in the Polish version - Krupsky) and gave him an explanation. He believed that this heraldic sign was Russian in origin. It is worth noting that in the Middle Ages the image of a lion could often be found on the coats of arms of the nobility in different states. In ancient Russian heraldry, this animal was considered a symbol of nobility, courage, moral and military prowess. Soit is not surprising that it was the lion that was depicted on the Kurbsky princely coat of arms.
